Tag: owl jones blog

The Owl Jones Boycott has been lifted

When sarcasm is the desired effect, perhaps a disclaimer should be issued along with the written entry. Sorta like a product warning label stating the obvious: Don’t drink bleach.

But if a writer has to state outright that sarcasm is the tone of a message, it detracts from the whole endeavor: kinda like attaching a note to the outside of a birthday present announcing the contents. An accompanying sarcasm disclaimer signifies that the message was ineffective and it is the either the fault of the writer, or it means that the audience is sarcasm-challenged. Maybe a combination of the two Probably the latter.

Regarding the matter of my recent UAPSA titled, Boycott Owl Jones, I believe 99% of the audience picked up on the sarcasm (including Owl Jones himself). Perhaps 1% of the Planet did not. Because of that, and because I take my journalistic responsibilities very seriously, I have issued this official press statement:

The Unaccomplished Angler wishes to apologize did not mean any harm toward Mr. Owl Jones. While neon green text on a black background may in fact cause eye strain, visiting Owljones.com is not the cause of my deteriorating eyesight. It happens to men my age. I officially apologize to Mr. Jones for If there were any web traffic slowdowns caused by what was clearly a sarcastic blog entry, it is merely a regrettable circumstance. So if you’re really boycotting Owljones.com because of what was said on the Unaccomplished Angler, it’s disturbing that you would place that much credence in anything I would say.

I was thinking that there should be some sort of internet technology designed to reduce the chances of a written word being taken out of context without having to resort to the use of cute little smiley faces, which to me are personally troubling (I’ve been told that I’m not in touch with my emoticons). Perhaps someone can develop a Sarcasm Detection Plugin? While we wait for that technology, the matter of Owl’s eye-strain-invoking website has in fact been remedied.

But don’t take my word for it–click on over to Owljones.com and see for yourself. It’s safe to go back in the water.

Boycott Owl Jones

This is another UAPSA (and thus filed accordingly under the category of Public Service Announcements, and not Weekly Drivel®).

I try not to make a habit of reading Owljones.com, but once in a while–in a moment of weakness or temporary insanity–I make the mistake of stopping by the blog. I’m usually disappointed, but this time I was horrified. It seems as though Owl has decided to run with scissors and go against the flow (imagine that!) by assigning a black background to his website. Sensible and widely-accepted design principles will tell you that any dark background is bad enough, but at least most often a black background is accompanied by white text. So while it’s still hard on the eyes, it could be worse.  Like using neon green, for example, which is exactly what Owl did. The glare caused me to tap out before I could even read the entire entry, which I had somehow gotten sucked into reading. It was all I could do to leave a comment, to which Mr, Jones replied:

Clearly he is a stubborn man. Fortunately the Common Sense Cavalry, in the form of The River Damsel, rode in to back me up by attempting to talk some sense into Mr. Jones:

Her mostly sage words fell on deaf ears, although for a fleeting couple of moments Mr. Jones did assign yellow as his text color. And it helped, though only marginally so. I let him know as much and pleaded with him to listen to the River Damsel’s words of wisdom:

I don’t believe he took my suggestion to offer Owl Jones Contrast Diffusion Goggles seriously. I was serious. I wanted to go back and argue some more with him, but my eyes just couldn’t take it. This is the last comment in our discussion:

So what I would suggest to you all is to boycott Owljones.com.  If you’ve been there before, or are a regular, don’t go back. If you’ve never been, consider yourself lucky and keep it at that…at least until he changes his background to white, with black letters. And to those of you who are contemplating the use of a black background, please reconsider. If you really feel you must have a black background (highly discouraged) at the very least use white text.